I Can Love You in Verse
by Speary
Summary: Dean was not much for poetry or sharing his feelings. Somehow a still quiet place in the bunker made Dean discover just how much something like a love poem spoken by the right person could actually matter. Destiel. One-Shot.


There's a space in the bunker that Sam doesn't know about. It's at the end of the hall and it shouldn't even be there, except that it is. The hallway leading to it is long and lined with doors to rooms and places to store crap. Dean found the space on one of his early explorations of their new home. He had rounded what he thought would be a corner to other spaces, but instead it was just a niche, an end of sorts.

It wasn't important, the space. Why it was there was also a mystery. It was almost like someone wanted to make another wing to the already expansive place, but then they just didn't. Instead they just made a wall a few feet in and called it a day. Sometimes Dean would walk there and then sit in the space. It was not an ideal spot for anything. Reading would be better done in his bedroom or even in the kitchen.

This spot though, called to him. It was quiet there, and no one would bother him if he just needed a place for his thoughts to happen. Cas found him there. It was awkward for a second. Dean was curled up against the wall of the space, reading a book for pleasure and not research. Cas rounded the corner and nearly stepped on him.

He took a quick step back. "Oh, sorry. I didn't see you."

Dean just laughed it off. "Not like you should have expected to either."

"What are you doing?" Cas asked, a slight tilt to his head as he surveyed the space.

"Reading." Dean didn't explain or elaborate. Cas, as it turned out had a book in his hands as well, something small and clutched within his long fingers as though he had reason to worry over it getting away from him.

"I was looking for a place to read myself." He made no move though to settle in. He just stood there looking down at Dean as if waiting for an invitation.

"Too loud with Sam, huh?"

"He is not a silent reader. He clicks things, pens, binder clips, the stapler. There are things that can even drive an angel to madness. Apparently, one of those things is your brother." Cas smiled as he said it, and Dean had to laugh at the situation. He had experienced the same sort of thing with Sam. It was part of the reason that he would sometimes send Sam away to do research, since he couldn't concentrate on his own research with him in the same room. He was likely more use to it than Cas had been though. He nodded to the other side of the niche in invitation. "You sure I won't be bothering you?"

"Do you plan to click things?"

"No."

"Then we should be good." Dean went back to looking at his book while Cas settled in across from him. He was dressed casually today, something new for him since he had settled more completely into the bunker life. He wore one of Dean's t-shirts. It said "Highway to Hell" across the chest. The first time he wore it, Dean smirked and asked if that shirt was really appropriate for an angel. To which Cas replied that hopefully God had a sense of humor. Next he launched into a longer explanation involving the fact that many in Hell were once angels and that he had in fact been to Hell before to raise Dean from perdition and yadda, yadda, yadda.

Cas read from his book and Dean did his best to ignore him there. The jeans were an interesting change. They clung to him rather tightly. They had belonged to Dean as well, and they had been ripped a little on the topmost portion of the thigh region, right side. Sam had snagged them when he had swung a massive sword out in a too wide arc. He only nicked Dean a little, but the jeans really were the casualty. Dean had tossed them aside, and Cas had claimed them. _Should really buy him an unripped pair._

The rip parted a little, showing tanned skin. _It was odd for him to be tanned there._ He never wore shorts or really spent much time in the sun, or so Dean thought, _so how is his skin tan there? And back to reading._ Dean focused, focused, focused. It was hard though when Cas was such a fast reader. He turned through the pages and Dean started feeling like he maybe needed to pick up the pace in his own book. He turned pages before finishing them, figuring he could go back later to fill in the gaps.

An hour passed, and Cas had read his book several times. Dean counted. He finally gave up and got to his feet in a slow crawl up the wall, feeling the scrape of the stone wall tiles there as he moved. It was almost like a really shitty back massage, and boy did he need a not so shitty back massage after subjecting himself to this space for so long a time.

He stretched his arms high over his head and felt his muscles ease out of the near rigor mortise that they had almost succumbed to. "You leaving?" Cas was watching him. His book was now flipped over onto his knee. The title was unfamiliar.

"Maybe. Whatcha reading?" Dean leaned back into the corner edge and rolled his back to the right and left in an effort to further work out the tightness in his muscles.

"The collected works of Edna St. Vincent Millay."

"Why?" Dean leaned forward a bit to get a better look at the book.

"Sometimes it is nice to read something written in verse that is not a spell, but captivates you just the same." Cas' thumb brushed over the cover with reverence as he said the words.

"This,' Dean pointed at the book while speaking, "captivates you?"

"Let's just say that it speaks to me." He got up from his corner too and faced Dean.

"Read me one." Dean nodded at the book. "One that speaks to you."

"Why?"

"Curious, that's all. Wanna know what sorts of things speak to you."

Cas looked down at the book in his hand and did not open it. He closed his eyes for a moment then looked back at Dean and said,

"I know my mind and I have made my choice;  
Not from your temper does my doom depend;  
Love me or love me not, you have no voice  
In this, which is my portion to the end.  
Your presence and your favours, the full part  
That you could give, you now can take away:  
What lies between your beauty and my heart  
Not even you can trouble or betray.  
Mistake me not_unto my inmost core  
I do desire your kiss upon my mouth;  
They have not craved a cup of water more  
That bleach upon the deserts of the south;  
Here might you bless me; what you cannot do  
Is bow me down, who have been loved by you."

He finished reciting the poem and Dean took a breath, not realizing that he had ceased doing so while Cas spoke. It was more than the words that moved him. He had never been much for poetry before. It was how the words flowed from him, the way that he looked while he said them, and how much Dean really wanted to believe that the words were more than a poem. If he let his mind linger in words and phrases, he could apply them to their lives. He wondered if it would be fair to do so. _It is possible, after all, to love a poem without feeling as if it is about you or even connected to you._ _Right?_

"We should head up for dinner before Sam starts hunting us down. I'd rather not have him discover this spot." Dean turned from Cas then and stalked off to the kitchen where dinner might be waiting. He heard Cas following, but it had taken him a moment to fall into step behind him.

* * *

Time did not bring relief. Dean's mind swam through seas of poems. He had scoured the Internet for more of Millay's works, and he read them all. There were plenty of poems on love and loss. There were also plenty that were not. Yet Cas picked that one. That poem spoke to him. _I do desire your kiss upon my mouth..._ Dean fashioned interpretations and reasons for those lines to speak to Cas. He carved out whole dissertations in his mind concerning the myriad ways in which the words could matter to him that didn't involve Dean's lips.

None of his explanations made sense, but he didn't concern himself with that too much. Instead, he waited a week, and then he went back to the niche that Sam, thankfully, still did not know about. Cas was there already, limbs a tumble and sprawl in front of him. His head was tipped to the wall at his side. His book was cupped in his hand that rested on his knee. It was not Millay this time, Dean knew. Cas read the book at a distance. Dean felt like he was getting old when he read now. He had to hold his books close.

Cas pulled his legs in a little, seemingly to make room for Dean. Dean slipped into the space on the opposite wall. He stretched out his legs and let one come to a rest alongside one of Cas'. There was warmth there, a type of energy, almost. After a few minutes had passed he began rolling his heel around a little, which in turn caused his leg to move back and forth with the effort. Cas glanced up at him, and curled up the edges of his lips in a minuscule smile. He looked down at the book Dean held just a bit from his face. "What are you reading?" He asked even though he could see the title on the cover.

"The collected works of Edna St. Vincent Millay," Dean's answer a parrot to Cas' from a week ago. He did not look up at Cas when he answered, but instead pretended to keep reading.

"Why?" Cas' question was low and quiet.

"It speaks to me." Dean's response was as calm as Cas' response had been before.

"Read me one that speaks to you." Cas leaned forward onto his knees and waited.

Dean had a few that spoke to him. He knew the one that he would share though.

"Loving you less than life, a little less  
Than bitter-sweet upon a broken wall  
Or bush-wood smoke in autumn, I confess  
I cannot swear I love you not at all.  
For there is that about you in this light—  
A yellow darkness, sinister of rain—  
Which sturdily recalls my stubborn sight  
To dwell on you, and dwell on you again.  
And I am made aware of many a week  
I shall consume, remembering in what way  
Your brown hair grows about your brow and cheek,  
And what divine absurdities you say:  
Till all the world, and I, and surely you,  
Will know I love you, whether or not I do."

He did not read the words from the page opened in front of him. He had instead memorized the words days ago. He thought that it was apt, though he did not dwell on why. Cas rolled his leg to the side and let it rest against Dean's leg. Dean did not roll his heel anymore, and he did not retreat from the warmth.

Cas was reading something new, since Dean now had his collection of poetry. He had snagged it from the kitchen table one night not long after hearing Cas recite from it. He had read it in his room each night before bed, fingers running over words with gentleness. He fell asleep with the book once. He woke up with it pressed to his lips, the breath of warm paper filling his first inhale of the morning.

Cas was doing that reading thing again, but this time Dean did not feel like he needed to keep up. The pages slipped by rapidly under Cas' fingers, but this time it was soothing, like a song sung just quietly enough to be a lullaby.

* * *

It became a thing. Dean didn't think about it though. He really couldn't. If he thought about it, he might make it stop, and the little that he did think about it was enough to make him want it to continue. He memorized a Shakespearean sonnet, to which Cas replied, "Shakespeare." Then he smiled and went back to reading from his own book. Later in the week Dean shared a poem about dying. He didn't mean to change the rules of their game or whatever this was.

Cas had fallen quiet after that poem. His eyes closed, he seemed to ponder why Dean would find that poem relevant. Dean had regrets after that. The next day, Cas read a poem of loss. Dean felt the regret grow stronger, and he decided that they would not continue to share poems like that anymore.

He fell into research. He woke up early most mornings and made his way to the kitchen. He popped open his laptop and looked through classic poems and then the contemporary ones too. He couldn't find the right kind of words, and he felt once again that maybe he was not one for poetry. Then he remembered the sound of Cas' voice, the cadence of vowels rumbling out past consonants and all of his doubts about the value of verse slid into an abyss newly made.

He found a snippet of something that he liked by Margaret Atwood. He left his laptop on the table and went into town to buy it in book form. There was somehow this unspoken rule that they had to show up with something in hand. He couldn't see himself printing out the thing; it would cheapen it somehow. Unfortunately though, when he returned Sam was sitting with his laptop opened.

"So, when did you get into poetry?" Sam quirked a brow up at him.

"I'm not." He hoped he could brush it off as he made his way to the fridge to locate a distracting beer.

"Hmm, you sure have a lot of love poetry open for one who is not into poetry. I mean, you literally searched the words _love poetry, sex poetry, erotic poetry,_ and my personal favorite, _angel poetry."_ Sam turned the laptop to Dean to show him.

 _Throw Cas under the bus._ "Looks like Cas has been using my laptop again. Dude likes poetry, I guess."

"Okay, Dean, sure." And thankfully, Sam left it at that. Of course, Dean knew, like he KNEW that Sam didn't believe a word he had said, but pretending had become his new thing and he barely did that, so this was working for him. "By the way, Cas said to tell you that he had some things to take care of, and that he might not be back until tomorrow or so."

"What things?" Dean may have sounded irritated or maybe a better word would be frustrated. He had his poem ready, and Cas not being here was sort of like doing your homework in high school only to have your teacher say that you could just turn it in later.

"Didn't catch it all, something about a poem." Sam looked up at him and smirked. "Maybe he is looking for some of that angel poetry or something."

Dean closed up his laptop and carried it off to his room to prevent Sam from further snooping. He also decided that if Cas wasn't going to make it back, that he might as well get to memorizing. He carried his poetry off to the hall, his space. He got there and wedged himself in the corner. He went over the lines twenty times or more. It was just the tale end of a poem, not a whole piece, but somehow it was enough. He had grown tired while sitting there and propped his head up on the wall next to him. The stone was cool on his cheek and lulled him to sleep.

"Dean." A hand settled on his shoulder. He woke up slowly, an eye cracking open to take in his surroundings. Cas was in front of him, lowered into a crouch. "You can't be comfortable sleeping here."

"I'm not. Didn't mean to fall asleep." He rocked his head back and forth to get the kinks out of it. "You weren't supposed to be home tonight. Sam said you were doing something."

"I realized that I did not need to be gone to accomplish my goals. I came home the moment that clarity came to me." Cas had not let go of Dean's shoulder yet. Dean noticed that he was wearing the ripped jeans again. The rip a wide mouth at his thigh, was once again showcasing golden tanned skin. Maybe it was the sleep, but he couldn't focus on anything else.

Dean reached out and slipped his index finger into the tear. The touch was pleasant. Dean decided that he needed an excuse for it, immediately. "I need to get you some less wholly jeans."

Cas laughed, "Well, I am an angel, so holy jeans seem ideal."

"Funny, Cas." Dean swooped his finger around in a loop and gave the spot a tug. It ripped a little more. "Oops, sorry." Cas let go of Dean's shoulder to settle his hand against the wall just over Dean. Dean regretted the absence of Cas' hand on him a little. The regret was small though when he considered that Cas had moved closer, and he still had managed to maintain contact via Cas' ripped jeans. "So, you were doing something with poetry, Sam said."

"I thought that I needed to look for a new collection. Our library is inadequate." Cas looked over his shoulder as if he could see clear to the rows on rows of books and all of their not poetry.

"Well, it served us well before." Dean twisted his finger around again and settled his hand flat on Cas' leg with the move. "So, you bring home a good poem?" He looked at Cas now in a more evaluative way and noticed that he was not holding a book. He tempered his disappointment, and convinced himself that Cas had maybe memorized something without bringing it home. He also noticed that he kept saying home, both out loud and in his head. Cas was home, and this is home to him.

"I'd rather hear your poem first. What has spoken to you today, Dean?" He tapped the cover of the book and then dragged his hand away, fingers making a slow trail over Dean's hand. Dean suddenly forgot the entire poem.

He had to take his hand back from Cas' thigh and use it to open the book. Cas moved then and sat next to him. "It's just part of a poem. I didn't feel like the beginning spoke to me, but the end did." He shuffled through the pages of the book while Cas' body heated Dean's legs, arms, side, and even his face. He could feel him radiating away as he turned page after page without seeing the words. He worried that he would fumble through his words too, but surely Cas wouldn't judge him. They were well past that into some new territory that he couldn't think about, but did now, now that it was the least convenient for such things. He found the page and stopped turning. He held his hand over it, so Cas couldn't see the words; he wanted him to just hear them. He turned to Cas and looked at him, willing him to look up too. And when he did, Dean spoke,

"Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising  
their glittering knives in salute.

Then there's the two  
of us. This word  
is far too short for us, it has only  
four letters, too sparse  
to fill those deep bare  
vacuums between the stars  
that press on us with their deafness.  
It's not love we don't wish  
to fall into, but that fear.  
this word is not enough but it will  
have to do. It's a single  
vowel in this metallic  
silence, a mouth that says  
O again and again in wonder  
and pain, a breath, a finger  
grip on a cliffside. You can  
hold on or let go."

Cas swayed into him impossibly closer than he was before. Dean tipped his head into the motion, letting it come to a rest against Cas. They let the silence linger until it was almost a tangible thing, a thing that begged for discussion, words that might breathe new life into it all. Cas' hand came up to the book, fingers tracing the words again with gentleness just five typed letters separating their fingers. Dean watched the gap shrink to four letters, then three. "I think that I like that one best of all." Cas was so quiet that Dean thought that maybe he had imagined it. Two letters. Dean sucked in an anticipatory breath and held it.

Nothing happened and Dean began wondering what he expected. At the same time something was happening, something that mere movement and words could not encompass. There was space and air and something set in motion as yet unfinished. It was the end of a book, and he was in the final pages. It was a poem with one more blessed stanza. He wanted to slow down and savor it while at the same time he wanted to leap headlong to the last word, the last line, the last all important detail. "I think that you should tell me your poem."

"I did not find one that spoke to me." Dean leaned back a little and looked at Cas. "I thought that I would find something in the stacks here. I found dust and so many things that I do not need at this moment. Do you need a spell to turn water into wine or a way to conjure light in a dark place?" Dean looked at him and shook his head despite knowing that the question was not the point. "I went to the local library and found plenty of poems. I found complex sonnets, too long free verse, an assortment of haiku, and lastly some limericks that you would love, but they were not what I had been hoping for."

"Limericks, huh?"

"Yes, filthy. You'd love them."

"Hmm, filthy limericks. Do share." Dean smirked.

"No."

Dean put on a disappointed face. "You're no fun."

"I know." Cas got up then, fingers having gotten quite close to contact before he did so.

Dean got up then. "I was just joking. I really do want to know what you found, but if you didn't find something, it's all good. Don't worry about it."

"Well, I did go to the park after. I found a bench and I sat. I considered a great many things. I've been thinking about words and their importance, what they mean and why we say them." He turned away from Dean now.

"And," Dean said when the silence became too much.

Cas turned back to him and took a decisive step into his space. "I composed something myself."

"You wrote a poem?" Dean maintained eye contact and felt his hand twitch out as if drawn to him. He kept from bridging the last of the gap.

"I don't know. I mean, I put important words together that mean more than what they convey on the surface. It is not polished. I am not a poet. I am much more given to tactics and such. This is not..."

"I want to hear it." Dean reached past the last of the space separating them.

"I need you." Cas sucked in a needless breath as if he needed that too. Dean just waited as if there was something more to be said. Cas said nothing.

"That's the whole thing?" Dean tipped his head a little to better look into Cas' eyes when he tried to look away from Dean's face.

"I suppose it isn't much of a poem, but it means more than is obvious on the surface."

Dean ran his hand up Cas' arm a little. "Tell me what it means to you."

"A long time ago, when the world was broken, you said 'I need you,' and those three words saved me, saved you too. You say them in your prayers, and in those words I know what it is to feel important. I've existed for so much time and yet I have never felt more, wanted more, cared more about anything than I did when you said, you needed me. No purpose could be greater, no life could be more rewarding, than the one offered up to me when I was needed by you."

"Still do." Dean interrupted.

"What?"

"You keep saying needed like it is in the past tense. I'm telling you that I still need you, present tense, future tense, always."

"Good." Cas stood close to him now, his chest pressed against Dean's. "I need you." He whispered his poem again, lips parted in solemn need.

"I need you." Dean slipped the words into the space between them. Dean felt his body press flat against the wall behind him as Cas leaned into him.

"I need you," the words rasped out again and turned into a kiss. And through the shared breath, through the shared poem of their affection, uttered slick and wet between their lips they formed new passages worthy of exploration. There was the steady meter of Dean's heartbeat, conveying need with each drum tap. There was the pastoral landscape of skin traced over by greedy fingers. There was the rough wall behind Dean, holding him up as he wrapped his leg up over Cas' hip like he might escape the confines of Dean's form if he were given the opportunity.

There would be no volta, no reversal after so much build up. There would be just progression to an image in his mind that had been building and building until it had to be more than just an image. He wanted to feel Cas' bare skin and know just how tan he was and why. He wanted him to speak more, whether in prose or rhyme. He grazed a trail away from his lips to his ear; Cas angled his neck to receive the solemn song of Dean's lips on him.

* * *

There's a space in the bunker Sam doesn't know about. It is a space that they go to when they need. It is a space that reminds them of life's gentle poetry. They still speak through passages of love and desire. They still trace out meaning on skin and smiles. They still find ways to press meaning into each other with words, with breaths, with a so solid crush of bodies colliding in the dark confines of spaces that were theirs and always would be.

* * *

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 **AN: Thank you so much for reading and hopefully leaving a comment. I've had a few days of not publishing something, so it feels good to get this out there. Hope you all liked it. If you are new to my writings, you can also find me on Tumblr as spearywritesstuff.**


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